Smiler's Fair: Book I of The Hollow Gods

by Rebecca Levene

  He realised he was crying. The tears evaporated as they fell and he snapped a look at Olufemi to see if she’d noticed his weakness. She wasn’t looking at him, though. She was stroking her pet and muttering to it, as if that was the most important thing she could be doing as the flames closed in and the end drew near.

  Except, Dae Hyo realised, it wasn’t ending. Olufemi was doing something. All around her, the flames were dying. When they reached towards her they faltered and the few that licked her robe melted away into smoke. On the material of her robe, the strange rune was burning a bright silver, brighter than the fire.

  The flames didn’t touch her but they burned Dae Hyo. He felt the scorch of one at his back and leapt forward to fling his arms round the mage.

  She gave him a look of mingled shock and disdain. ‘This is not how I want to die,’ she hissed.

  ‘Good. It’s not how I want to die either, so keep doing whatever you’re doing.’

  ‘What I’m –’ Then she saw the way the fire held back from them. Her eyes widened.

  ‘Your rune stopped it. I tell you what, you might have tried it a bit sooner. Not that I mean to complain,’ he added, tightening his arm round her shoulders. ‘You’ve saved my life. I’m grateful.’

  ‘The rune stopped it,’ she whispered, looking at her own robe. ‘Yron’s rune killed the fire.’

  He and Olufemi stood in a tunnel of light, orange and red and yellow flames arching above them. The crack and spit of destruction was all around. If they didn’t move soon, the fire would be the least of their worries. The fair would fall on top of them, and that would be that.

  ‘We have to go,’ he said. ‘The stables haven’t all burned yet. If Krish is there, we can still find him.’

  ‘Yes, yes we can.’ She laughed again and he wished she wouldn’t. He didn’t like relying for his safety on someone whose mind seemed a little cracked.

  ‘You’ll have to lead me,’ he told her with careful patience. ‘I don’t know the way.’

  ‘I don’t either,’ she said, still smiling. She stroked her pet’s muzzle and asked: ‘Adofo?’

  The little creature cocked its head at her, exactly as if it understood, then leapt from her arms and scurried two steps before turning back to face them, chittering impatiently.

  ‘Apparently he does,’ Olufemi said, striding unafraid into the fire.

  Sang Ki sat on a hill and watched the destruction of Smiler’s Fair. His breath was still rasping and his legs ached from their desperate flight to get here. Barely more than a third of his men sprawled on the grass around him, soot-smudged and shocked by the enormity of the fair’s demise. There would have been far fewer of them if he hadn’t left a group of forty in their camp outside the gates. He’d told Gurjot they were to guard his mother, but in truth they’d been insurance against an internal betrayal.

  Even in his most anxious imaginings, though, he’d never pictured this. What had possessed that mage to start the blaze? He could only assume she was an ally of the prodigal prince’s, but what she’d done could hardly have helped him. Of course, it hadn’t much helped Sang Ki either. The most likely outcome was that the prince had died in the inferno, his bones blackened and nothing left of him to prove he’d been disposed of. There was unlikely to be anything Sang Ki could take back to King Nayan as evidence of his success. And then again, the boy could have escaped among the streams of fugitives fleeing the fair from all sides.

  Sang Ki could have set his men to ring the fair and attempt to search them. Perhaps he should have. Here and there he could see members of the Brotherband or a few of Gurjot’s men doing precisely that. But he preferred to keep his force intact. The citizens of Smiler’s Fair couldn’t possibly be happy with the destruction the Ashane had brought in their wake. He’d rather show them enough strength to discourage any thoughts of revenge.

  Every now and then, a few more of his soldiers would flee the fair and make their way to his encampment, but the numbers grew fewer as time progressed. There weren’t many living things left inside Smiler’s Fair. The desperate screaming of the animals trapped in its stables had ended, but the smell of scorched flesh that filled the air was a terrible thing. A column of black smoke nearly a mile wide and countless miles high rose into the air and blotted out the sun. All the tribes of the plain must be able to see the fair’s pyre.

  Sang Ki was watching the black column and wondering just how many bodies had been reduced to ash to make it when he became aware of the approach of another force. The thunder of their hooves was his first warning. Their forms were vague in the smoke and they were closer than he would have liked before he recognised Chun Cheol with a good thirty men of the Brotherband around him.

  They had no weapons drawn and they made no threats. Sang Ki nearly let them come. They were fleeing the fire too – why shouldn’t they take refuge with the Ashane? But there was something fixed and dangerous in Cheol’s expression and instead Sang Ki shouted at his own men, ‘Up! Up! To arms!’

  They were almost too slow to react. Several remained lying on the grass and those who reached for swords and bows did it with clear reluctance. One of his lieutenants shot him a puzzled look and opened his mouth on what was clearly going to be a protest. Sang Ki didn’t give him time. ‘Ready your arrows,’ he yelled at his men, then forced himself to his feet with a groan of effort and shouted, ‘Halt! No closer!’ to the Brotherband.

  The Brotherband kept riding and now his own men looked alarmed. They held their weapons with greater intent, a few arrows flew and finally he saw Cheol’s horse rear as the other man reined it in savagely. One by one his men did the same. The horses whinnied in protest and stamped their feet restlessly. The Brotherband looked equally frustrated and Sang Ki knew he’d saved his own life and that of his men, though he’d never be able to prove it.

  Only twenty paces separated the two forces. Sang Ki could see Cheol’s expression clearly as they eyed each other for a long moment in silence. The other man seemed angry at first, but then his expression calmed. It might almost have been a look of respect.

  ‘Until we meet again,’ Cheol said at last. He raised his sword – whether in salute or in threat, Sang Ki didn’t know – then wheeled his horse and rode away.

  Desperation had given new strength to Krish’s weakened body. At the cost of a raw scrape all the way round his wrist he’d dragged one hand free of its manacle. His fingers fumbled at the knot securing his other arm, but the rope wouldn’t give and he’d nearly torn out a nail trying to pull it free.

  The fire was very near. The air was heavy with smoke, thick and unbreathable. The mammoth had collapsed, gasping, and now lay still beside him. Krish choked on every breath. The thought that he’d suffocate before he burned was a bare comfort. He wasn’t ready to give up.

  The knot began to loosen and his aching throat tightened with hope. The fire was cruel, though. It chose that moment to reach the stable wall. The wood blackened and burned with incredible swiftness. The heat of it struck him like a blow and even as his right hand came free he knew he wouldn’t have time to release his feet.

  At first they seemed like nothing but swirls of smoke. It was only as a grey hand reached for his foot that he realised the worm men had come. There were scores of them crawling from the ground. He thought they meant to eat him and jerked away, yelling, but the needle-sharp teeth closed around the rope, not his leg, and severed it instantly. Another creature freed his right foot as three more surrounded him, as if they meant to ward off the flames with their bodies.

  They did. When a spark caught in the pile of straw beside him one flung itself on the flames to smother them. It whimpered and writhed in pain but stayed in place until the fire was quenched.

  Krish tried to rise, but his head swam the instant he raised it. The blood he’d lost made his limbs heavy, too heavy to lift. The creatures stared at him with their eyes so like his own. Then one grabbed him beneath his elbows, another two took a leg each and, heaving him to their shoulders, they
began to run towards the stable door. The movement was agonising. Too much of the straw was burning now for the creatures to slow down. The stable would be gone within a minute.

  The door itself was framed by fire. He heard the creatures’ skin sizzle like fat on a skillet as they carried him through it. His own skin reddened with the heat but they spared him the worst of it. There was no relief outside. Smoke obscured everything except the glow of flames all around. The creatures turned, finding some direction he couldn’t see in the chaos, and began to carry him away from the stables.

  One stumbled over the outflung arm of a corpse and another leapt to take its place at Krish’s ankle, leaving the first to the flames. A woman’s face loomed out of the smoke, wide-eyed with panic and even wider-eyed when she caught sight of the creatures carrying Krish. Then the woman was gone and Krish was alone again with his monstrous rescuers.

  But the smoke was thinning. Held slung between the creatures, he gazed up as black-flecked grey lightened to the colour of grubby snow and then blew away altogether to reveal the perfect blue of the sky, which had been above the destruction all along.

  In the moment the sky was revealed, the creatures caught fire. Krish fell to the ground as they released him. The flames ate through them like boiling water through ice, quicker than any natural fire. Krish dragged himself to his knees and reached a hand out to the nearest. The creature stared back at him, its eyes full moons. It screamed in its last moments and then it was gone, burnt away to a grey ash that sank into the mud until no evidence remained that his saviours had ever existed.

  Krish stayed on his knees, gasping for breath as his head swam. He couldn’t quite believe he’d survived. The most recent moments of his life felt like a dream, the most recent day a nightmare. He realised that he was kneeling in an open space with no houses on either side, while ahead of him stretched the open grasslands. The creatures had brought him clear of Smiler’s Fair. He only needed to walk forward and he’d be free, but he didn’t know if he could. He felt as if he there was nothing left in him.

  He heard the crunch of footsteps through the ashes behind him. He wanted to call for help but he could only cough. Then someone shouted his name, the footsteps turned to a run – and Dae Hyo fell to his knees in front of him and pulled him into a crushing embrace. The scent of stale alcohol enveloped him, familiar and comforting.

  ‘You’re alive, brother,’ Dae Hyo said. ‘I knew you would be.’

  Krish tried to smile. He probably wasn’t very successful, because Dae Hyo grasped his head between calloused palms and turned it this way and that before running his hands over Krish’s body. Krish cried out when they brushed against the still bleeding wounds on his thighs.

  ‘My legs,’ he managed to croak. ‘They cut me.’

  ‘Here, let me see,’ said a new voice. He flinched away as an old, very dark-skinned woman also knelt in front of him.

  ‘Don’t worry, she’s a friend,’ Dae Hyo said. ‘She saved my life. Mind you, she almost got me killed first, but I think we can put that behind us. Her name’s Olufemi.’

  Olufemi gently probed the wounds. She tssked and hurriedly tore strips of cloth from her robe to bind them. ‘You’ll live,’ she said. ‘When we’re away I’ve a cream that will stop infection setting in. And you’ll eat the liver of every beast your brother here kills, to regain the lost blood.’ As their eyes met he felt an almost physical shock he didn’t understand. There was recognition in her face and also something that seemed to hover between astonishment and joy.

  ‘You really are him,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m Dae Krish,’ he rasped.

  ‘You’re a lot more than that, brother.’ Dae Hyo slipped an arm round Krish’s waist and hauled him to his feet with easy strength. His leather jerkin chafed against Krish’s bare skin. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, but you have to admit you’re not the most likely prince a man could meet. The important thing is, you are who you said you are – and your father’s men are here for you. Well, those of them that survived our fire. We need to put some miles between us and Smiler’s Fair, but we’ll have to walk. Our horses burned up with the rest of the place, the poor fuckers.’

  Krish looked behind him. A thick column of smoke rose into the air above the ash and ruin, and yellow flickers showed where the fire still burned. He turned his head away and allowed Dae Hyo to half carry, half lead him towards the refuge of the grasslands. He was beyond feeling more fear. He just wanted this day to end.

  Olufemi walked at his other side. His vision was blurred with fatigue but each time he glanced at her he caught her looking at him. She was carrying a creature with her, a strange thing that looked almost like a miniature man, but scaled like a snake. It leaned towards him, chittering, and he saw its eyes for the first time: silver moons exactly like his. The creature reached out a thin hand to stroke his cheek. Its expressive face looked almost as startled by their resemblance as he was.

  ‘Just a little further, brother,’ Dae Hyo coaxed as Krish stumbled. ‘Just over the hill and we can make camp. They’ll be too busy dealing with the fire to send out search parties. For all they know, you’re already dead.’

  The walk felt endless. His vision darkened and he returned to consciousness to find himself being carried in Dae Hyo’s arms. Even the big warrior was panting with the effort. The sun was bright in the sky, adding to the heat of the inferno at their backs. He could hear no insects or birds and see no rabbits or deer. With the wisdom of beasts, they’d fled the flames. When the top of the hill finally came in reach, he told Dae Hyo to set him down. The other man kept an arm round his waist and together they crested the rise.

  The warriors were waiting for them on the other side: a dozen of them as heavily armed as Dae Hyo and not shaking with exhaustion. They were tribesmen, their turbans and shirts black and silver.

  ‘Chun bastards!’ Dae Hyo hissed. He released Krish and drew his sword, his teeth bared. Olufemi blanched beside him but Krish found himself laughing weakly, astounded that the day could continue to worsen.

  ‘Show us your eyes!’ the lead warrior demanded.

  ‘Ignore him, brother,’ Dae Hyo said, circling to the left as the man approached.

  Krish raised his head to meet the Chun warrior’s gaze. There was no need for anyone but him to die here. ‘I’m Krishanjit,’ he said. ‘You’ve found me.’

  The warrior’s expression was almost a mirror of Olufemi’s when she’d first seen Krish. His broad face froze and his eyes flared in shock. Then, inexplicably, he bowed.

  ‘A trick,’ Dae Hyo said.

  ‘The Rune Waste sent us visions of your coming, lord,’ the warrior said to Krish. ‘We followed the Ashane on their hunt for you. If they found you, we could protect you.’ His accent was strong, but he spoke Ashane well.

  Olufemi hobbled forward. The climb had been almost as hard on the old woman as it had on Krish. She looked as weary as he felt, but her gaze was keen on the Chun man. ‘What vision did the Rune Waste send?’ she asked.

  ‘The moon rising. The boy prophet told us, and so it has. The moon has risen.’

  ‘The moon has risen!’ the rest shouted and they all bowed.

  ‘They’re yours,’ Olufemi told Krish. ‘It’s no trick. You are the risen moon. The runes have woken to prove it.’

  ‘We’re yours,’ the warrior said. ‘Command us.’

  ‘They’re Chun,’ Dae Hyo said. ‘These are the men who killed our people, brother. They raped my sister before they killed her. They cut off her breasts. They’re beasts.’ His face was drawn and horrified, and Krish realised that it was the look of a man who knew he was already defeated. These men were promising to obey Krish in a world full of people who wanted him dead. He’d thought he needed to build an army to fight his father and this one had been waiting for him all along.

  ‘You’re mine to command?’ he asked.

  The warrior nodded. ‘We want to protect you, lord. We will summon our warriors to guard you on the journey.
Most hearths of the Brotherband are north. We will meet with them there and Chun Yong will pledge us all to you.’

  Krish turned to Dae Hyo. ‘These are the people who killed the Dae?’

  Dae Hyo pointed at one of the warriors, a scarred man with streaks of grey in the fringe of hair beneath his turban. ‘That one killed my cousin. He ripped the baby from her arms and killed it too.’ He pointed at another. ‘He took his axe to the elder mothers as they slept.’ Another. ‘He raped a girl not five years old. I found her body nearly split in two.’

  Dae Hyo had told Krish that he’d returned to the camp too late to prevent the slaughter. He’d returned after the killing was over and never seen the men responsible. His accusations couldn’t be true. But looking at Dae Hyo’s face, Krish understood that it didn’t really matter to him. Someone had done those things and it might have been these men.

  He turned to Olufemi. ‘What does it mean when they say I’m the risen moon?’

  ‘You’re the son of King Nayan of Ashanesland,’ she told him.

  ‘I know. They said I’d kill my da, so my da tried to kill me. Why do the Chun care about an Ashane prince?’

  ‘Because you’re more than that. The prophecy didn’t say that you’d kill your father. They all misunderstood. You were destined to eclipse the King, not destroy him. You’ll outshine him because Yron is reborn in you, the moon god who’s been gone from the world for a thousand years.’

  ‘Yron returns,’ the Chun warriors echoed.

  Krish felt a flare of rage. Gods, prophecies, lust, gold. Everyone had their reasons and none of them were any good. One father had tried to kill him and another had driven him to murder. The magistrate Gurjot had meant to send him to his death. His ma had offered her virtue to free him and Rahul had taken it as if it meant nothing. Marvan and Nethmi had tried to kill him just for the joy of it, the way boys caught flies in sport. All these people, who thought they could do anything and never be punished for it.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Krish said. ‘I don’t want to hear any more. You think you know who I am? I’ll tell you who I am. I’m Dae. And the Chun killed the Dae.’